As DFS players, we spend most of our time looking forward to the next slate, the next season, etc. Equally important, though, is looking back. Figuring out the thought process that leads to winning lineups is crucial. That’s what makes us better players long term.
The winner of the Week 11 Millionaire Maker was Tedybear77, who got there with a modest portfolio of seven lineups. We’ll take a look at some of their other rosters as well to see if there was a thought process that led to the million-dollar takedown.
The Lineup
The Stack
Given their 42-point explosion against the Titans, a Commanders stack taking down the Milly Maker wasn’t incredibly surprising. Not that I — or many other people — saw it coming ahead of time.
Perhaps we should’ve, though. Washington’s 25.5-point team total was fourth-best on the slate, so getting quarterback Jayden Daniels as the 12th-most popular quarterback was a great play in hindsight. Our ownership projections had him as about twice as popular as he ended up being, but still relatively underplayed.
Stacking him with his clear-cut top wide receiver is also an obvious choice, and Terry McLaurin came through for 27 points. Including a running back in the stack was sneaky, though, and really set this lineup apart.
Quarterbacks and their top running backs correlate fairly well, so maybe we should consider that pairing more often. It works out well in games like this, where teams get to a big lead through the air and then control the game on the ground afterward. The fact that Robinson doesn’t catch many passes doesn’t really matter for that scenario.
Tedybear77 ran the stack back with Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. NWI has one of the most improbable stat lines on the season, with eight touchdowns on just 20 catches. That’s clearly unsustainable so I wouldn’t get too high on him going forward — but two of those scores came in Week 13.
All four members of this stack came in at under 5% ownership, with Tedybear77 using them in one or two of his seven lineups.
Other Correlations
The other correlated pieces in this lineup were Tampa Bay’s Mike Evans and Bucky Irving. Running backs and wide receivers from the same team don’t correlate especially strongly, though both benefit from overall offensive production being up.
Coming into the week against the league’s worst defense by points per game allowed (and 30th ranked defense by DVOA) it certainly made sense to load up on Bucs pieces, though. I talked about wanting some exposure to Irving in my Main Slate breakdown for Week 13, thanks to the elite rushing matchup for Tampa Bay.
Irving (and, to an extent, Evans) ended up being very popular. Of course, you can get away with that when you game stack four players at sub-5% ownership. That’s a good reminder to focus on overall ownership across your lineup rather than being scared to roster “the chalk” of any given slate.
The Chalk
The other highly owned piece in this lineup was Ladd McConkey. I mentioned him as my favorite wide receiver value on the slate and played him in cash games this week. He was a solid way to get exposure to a popular quarterback in Justin Herbert while leaving that spot open for a higher-upside player.
I don’t think anyone foresaw McConkey being responsible for more than 66% of Herbert’s passing yards in this — or any — week. That made the “McConkey instead of Herbert” play much stronger than it usually would be.
Of course, to win a contest with more than 100,000 entries, you need some fluky things to go your way, and Tedybear77 nailed two of them this week.
The Sleepers
The other lesser-owned pieces of this lineup included the Chargers D. I almost mentioned that as a correlation play with McConkey — except they barely correlate. Tedybear77 also played a ton of McConkey, but this was their only roster with the Chargers D. As always, a weekly reminder to mix and match defenses. The Chargers also had the best defensive line matchup of the week according to my numbers (see the Week 13 Main Slate for the data).
The other spot where it’s typically wise to mix and match is tight end. This lineup featured Pat Freiermuth at just under 5% ownership against a Bengals defense that’s surrendered a ton of points lately.
Tedybear77 took a stand on two players at the position — Freiermuth and TJ Hockenson — with 100% combined ownership on them. I personally would’ve advocated for casting a wider net. Hockenson was a huge letdown, so even strongly projecting tight ends have a high failure rate.
Obviously, it worked out, though, and taking players against bad defenses is a good way to break ties. This lineup won by around 12 points, though, so a ton of tight ends could’ve been used in that spot without changing the result.
